Medical marijuana is humane

By Andrew Tatarsky, Commentary

Updated 6:46 pm, Wednesday, January 29, 2014

As a psychologist who has specialized in substance use treatment for over 30 years, I have given a lot of thought to medical marijuana. Over the years, I have seen several patients who have used marijuana medicinally but have suffered — from potential criminalization and the shame, stigma and fear that comes from using an illicit substance. Twenty states and D.C. now permit the use of medical marijuana. New York should join them.

I applaud Gov. Andrew Cuomo's recent acknowledgement of cannabis' medical value for some seriously ill people. However, the 1980 Olivieri Law that he is using, through which medical marijuana would be available through 20 hospitals around the state, has significant restrictions, preventing many patients who need the medicine from receiving it.

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Andrew Tatarsky, Ph.D., has specialized in the field of substance use treatment for over 30 years. He is president of the Division of Addiction of the New York State Psychological Association and founder and director of the Center for Optimal Living, an addiction treatment and professional training center in New York City.

The Legislature is currently considering the Compassionate Care Act, which would create one of the best-regulated medical marijuana programs in the country. The administration has signaled that if the Legislature passes the bill, the governor would support it. Many of my colleagues in the addiction and mental health treatment communities support this bill, as reflected in endorsements by the New York State Psychological Association and its Division on Addiction.

Allowing the seriously ill access to safe and legal medical marijuana under their health care provider's supervision is, fundamentally, an issue of compassion and human rights. The medical value of cannabis is no longer a matter of dispute. The efficacy of cannabis for controlling certain conditions and symptoms is well-established in the scientific literature. And, compared to other prescription medications, like widely used opioid pain relievers, medical cannabis is relatively safe, having no known lethal dose and few side effects.

The Compassionate Care Act will ultimately make the job of drug treatment professionals like me easier. The worst dangers associated with medical marijuana come from forcing patients to seek medical marijuana on the illicit market, with potentially devastating consequences — like untested and possibly contaminated product, lifelong criminal records, and shame and stigma from using an illegal substance.

It's time to acknowledge that our current efforts to prohibit marijuana use, by pushing an abstinence-only message and exaggerating the dangers, have failed. Marijuana use by young people can be a problem and should be discouraged, but denying those with debilitating medical conditions access to medical marijuana is not a winning prevention strategy.

When our young people learn that their drug education is filled with misinformation about marijuana, we lose credibility and damage our ability to teach them accurate information about the real dangers of marijuana and other drugs.

We need honest, reality-based drug prevention and treatment programs to reduce the problematic use of marijuana by children and adults alike.

In fact, another reason I support the Compassionate Care Act is because it would generate and earmark substantial funding for such prevention programs, which have unfortunately been devastated by cuts in recent years.

I am not suggesting that medical marijuana is the right choice for everyone. There are risks associated with using it, just as with any medication. Medical marijuana shouldn't be recommended for use in adolescents, unless there is a compelling medical need, and people with particular mental illnesses, especially schizophrenia, should avoid using it.

There is also the risk, in a small percentage of users, of overuse and addiction; those cases should be referred to mental health and substance use treatment professionals for assessment and treatment. But we can best assess our patients and address these risks by having an open and honest dialogue — something nearly impossible for most health care practitioners in New York right now.

Our responsibility as drug treatment providers is to work with our patients to help them create full, meaningful, and healthy lives.

We have long had to deal with helping clients who use potentially dangerous and addictive medications to treat illnesses, and we do so because no one should have to suffer needlessly.

Medical marijuana is a fundamental matter of compassion, and bringing it into a safe, regulated and de-stigmatizing system will solve far more problems than does our current system of criminalizing our sickest and most vulnerable citizens.